Former Interrogator Rebukes Cheney For Torture Speech First

Cheney, said Alexander, fundamentally misunderstands the way America is viewed around the world. The American principles of freedom and democracy are cherished in the Muslim world and the idea, at least, of America is still a seductive one. But it is the behavior of the Bush administration at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret prisons around the globe that undercuts that image, allowing Al Qaeda to make the argument that America isn't what it stands for.

"Remember," said Alexander, "one of Al Qaeda's goals, it's not just to attack the United States, it's to prove that we're hypocrites, that we don't live up to American principles. So when we use torture and abuse, we're playing directly into one of their stated goals."

The video is at once an effective rebuke of the former vice president and a sign of how the changing media landscape can flatten the field of political debate. In an earlier era, Alexander would likely lack the opportunity to respond to the vice president because he has already written on op-ed for the Washington Post about his opposition to torture and done the media rounds promoting his book "How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq." The BNF video, and a rejoinder posted here over the weekend, reinserts a critic with deep credibility back into the debate.

WATCH:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/26/former-interrogator-rebuk_n_207483.html